6 Steps to Providing Culturally Competent Nursing Care for LGBTQIA+ Patients

As healthcare professionals, it’s important that we ensure all patients are being treated for their entire wellness. When a patient identifies as LGBTQIA+, ensuring their entire wellness may mean learning some new terms, taking a continuing education course, and more. Below are six ways to make sure you’re taking the best care of your LGBTQIA+ patients. 

Ask New Questions 

It’s important not to make assumptions about patients, including their sexuality or sexual partners, and how that affects their health, which is why it’s important to ask new, more inclusive questions. 

For example, when talking about sex, two different patients could mean two different situations. This makes it important to ask questions about what that means to them, either on intake forms or during the appointment. 

Open-ended questions can help with this as well, as patients may be willing to talk more about their lives and experiences when they are sure that assumptions aren’t being made about them. For example, asking, “Could you tell me about your sexual experiences?” shows the patient that you have not assumed their sexuality or the experiences they have. 

Inclusive intake forms are a great way to gather this information to best care for your patient and can help answer many of the questions you have for the patient before they’ve even been seen. Here is one example of a more inclusive intake form from One Colorado. This includes many options for gender identities, personal pronouns, relationship status, and more. 

Be Aware of LGBTQIA+ Specific Issues

With higher rates of potential medical issues, it’s important that we’re aware of experiences and concerns that are common with our LGBTQIA+ patients. One literature review, “Health Care Disparities Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth” by Hudaisa Hafeez, Muhammad Zeshan, Muhammad A Tahir, Nusrat Jahan, and Sadiq Naveed found that young LGBTQIA+ people are at a higher risk for many dangerous and life threatening conditions. 

According to the review, “The LGBT youth are at a higher risk for substance use, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), cancers, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, bullying, isolation, rejection, anxiety, depression, and suicide as compared to the general population.” With this information, we can know where to look to be preventative of these issues, and how to best take care of them if one or more of these issues are present in our patient’s life. 

As our patients’ strongest advocates, we are in a unique position to ensure they receive culturally competent care across multiple levels.

Examine if Your Environment Feels Welcoming to LGBTQIA+ People

From the intake forms to information often found on the walls, LGBTQIA+ people often don’t find the right language for themselves or their health concerns, however these are changes that can be made. Adding posters about LGBTQIA+ health, pride flags, pins, or pennants on cork boards, and making sure the language on the existing information is inclusive can help create a welcoming environment. It can also be helpful to make sure the workplace’s anti-discrimination policy is visible to all patients. 

As mentioned earlier, a change in intake forms can help not only gather more information about your patients, but can also make them feel included. If a patient is filling out a form and does not see options for their identities or sexuality, it is likely to make them feel more reserved and less likely to talk about experiences that could be bothering them during the appointment. 

Pay Attention to Your Patient’s Language 

A patient's language is a great way to understand their life, partners, and experiences. If your patient is using terms, such as pronouns or sexual identity, that you’re not certain about, keep a note of those terms to look up after the appointment. If you also notice that a patient is using a pronoun for themselves or someone in their life that does not match the one you are using, be sure to make note of that and replace it with the one you had been using. 

Take an LGBTQIA+ Healthcare Course

The National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center has webinars, videos, publications, and more to help expand your knowledge on LGBTQIA+ healthcare, some of which are even available for CME credit. These course topics cover many topics in LGBTQIA+ healthcare, including transgender legal issues, gender affirming care, and primary care for intersex people. Increasing our knowledge of LGBTQIA+ healthcare can help us serve each individual better and increase their overall wellbeing. 

Update Your Own Language

It’s important to be aware of key terms that our patients may use. The National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center has a publication of LGBTQIA+ Glossary of Terms for Health Care Teams, which can be extremely helpful, no matter your experience with LGBTQIA+ healthcare or terms. Terms in this publication include many gender identities, sexualities, surgeries, and more—all of which can help expand your LGBTQIA+ knowledge and language, which all helps you serve your patients better.